Dear Ones,

We have had a busy few days.  Last week we visited with the neighborhood of Tondo where we were introduced to the poorest of the poor.

We had the privilege of meeting with Malissa, President and CEO of the Purple Centers Foundation.  Her organization works in the community of Tondo.  We are exploring ways we (LDS Charities and Purple Centers Foundation) might work together.

Mothers being taught to cook nutritious meals

As part of our introduction we were escorted through the unusual neighborhood as well as the Purple Centers School which has been established to help lift these children out of the cycle of poverty. 

Children at the soup kitchen

The day was very hot and we felt like we were melting, but this is everyday life for the sweet children of Tondo

After a 2 hour drive from our home, our first stop was the soup kitchen PCF sponsors to provide meals for the undernourished children who have been identified as “wasted”.  It is located in a small church in this same community.  It has been determined from past experience it is important to engage the mothers if there is to be a change in the community.  As part of the feeding program, PCF provides nutrition classes for the mothers of these wasted children and then supervises the preparation of meals.  Mothers who are willing to take these classes and cook the meals can bring their children in to eat.   The children are weighed and measured every week to see their progress.  Malissa reported that most indications show the program is working.  She said the heart breaking part is that some mothers refuse to participate.  They also refuse to let their children go to school.

Elder and Sister Webb standing with the mothers who cook at the soup kitchen.  Malissa is in the blue dress

The food was cooked in a big pot while mothers and children waited.  We watched as they dished up the food.  The plates were filled with rice and the soup with fish heads and greens was added to the mix.  Fish heads are considered a very nutritious brain food here in the Philippines.  The children ate as mothers watched.  Most of the children were hearty eaters, some just picked at the food.  The greens were like tough spinach and they took careful chewing, but the children would work through it.  One little fellow kept taking green balls from his mouth, he would look at it then pop it back in for additional mastication.We stayed for what seemed an hour and then we moved on.

Elder Webb and Malissa discuss needs in Tondo

Life in Tondo

Next we entered the neighborhood from which these children come.  It is hard to describe what we actually saw but I will try and you will not understand; the pictures will give you a little feel for it though.  This community of people once lived atop Smoky Mountain garbage dump.  They were evicted from the site by the government after the International Community complained.  The people of Smoky Mountain simply moved down the mountain and across the street. 

The first alley we walked down was just the entrance to their world.
Each different alcove was the front for a different business

The road narrowed as those working piled their collections higher and higher

There is order in this chaos.  These are sacks of plastic wear waiting to be hauled to the buyer.

What's in the sack?  Each sack is filled with organized recycle. This one is plastic forks.
These people do not have money to spend on making it look nice.

The road led to this section which is kind of dead end.  This picture is taken just before we turned left.

Living in this neighborhood takes strength, ingenuity and an imagination.  

Elder Webb makes friends by showing the children pictures of themselves

As we walked through this world set in another time, our eyes wide, we felt like we were in a Dickens novel with laundry hanging on make shift lines in dark hall ways.  The community itself is made from Manila’s left overs.  The homes are furnished with wood recycled from the dump.  Having said that, when we look deeper past the fact we were walking through garbage we saw industry at work.

Hallway in to the apartment complex.  The three story structure is made by the government from cement and the rest is material rescued from Smokey Mountian.

There is no government incentive to recycle.  No one does.  So this dump site is the business center for the people of Tondo.  They RECYCLE.  They go through everything, leave the dead and dying on the mountain and bring down anything else that can be recycled.  We learned that the plastic that comes on your dry cleaning has two sides, one with printing and one without.  The side without printing is worth more; 5 pesos per kilo.  Do you know how many of those plastic covers would make a kilo?  A lot!  100 peso is about 2 dollars a little more.

The left-overs from your restaurant are first picked over by your waiters.  Then, the garbage cans outside are picked over by those in the streets.  Finally, the trucks pick up the garbage (and the truck guys grab what they can) and take it to the dump.  Then these guys at Tondo tear apart the sacks (I didn't see a glove among them) and pick apart everything.  Very little is left.  They have sacks for plastic, sacks for cans, sacks for cardboard, sacks for .  .  .  .  And up and down the street, they tear open bags and toss stuff back and forth to the guys who are gathering that particular type of refuse. It's called re-cycling.  

There were businesses one right after another each bagging and tearing or taking apart anything of value.  It was a very organized industry in the middle of what seemed like chaos at first sight. 

In the front of this woman's very little home she has established a store front where people can buy things then need.
Capitalism is alive in Tondo.  We should have purchased something, but we did not take money in with us.

From there we headed to the Purple Centers Foundation’s school.  It is visible throughout the community.  It is a large PURPLE colored (the color of royalty) building made of recycled 40 foot containers that were donated to the foundation.  In the long run it probably cost more to use the containers in building the school than it would have to start from scratch but once you start something it is hard to go back.  It is perfect for this community built on recycling and they have a great learning environment for the children.  The program is much like one we would see in the talented and gifted program giving these kids every opportunity to break out of this world into one with more opportunity.  I am not including pictures of the school in this post.  

Children playing school

Welcome to my world

Woman peeling garlic to sell.  Even the Garlic Skin she carefully puts in the sack is recycled

Old lumber recycled from tear downs is recycled.  What cannot be used in their constructions is turned into charcoal.

Of course there are pop cans.

View from the Purple Centers School

There are so many needy projects that come to our attention.  We truly need Heaven’s help to determine where LDS Charities can help the most.  Our funds are not unlimited, but the poverty is.  One thing we have noticed is that we are no longer overcome by what we see.  The Lord has blessed us, and helped us to see good where ever we are.  We are grateful to know there are other good people dedicated to relieving the suffering of the poor. Malissa and Iris are two such people.

Pre- school sponsored by Purple Centers.  This pleasant space was a nice visual surprise.

We finished our tour and headed toward the airport.  Our business for the day was not finished as we headed to Tacloban to check up on one of our projects.  The plane was late and we arrived in Tacloban too late to do anything but grab a bite to eat and head for bed. 

Houses built by GMA Kapuso after Typhoon Yolanda

The next day we went to the project site to inspect the chairs LDS Chairties donated.  GMA Kapuso Foundation has built a community for families displaced by the 2013 Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan was the international name).  It is a very nice place, but up until now the children have not had a school.  GMA has committed to rebuild a number of schools that were destroyed during that time.  LDS Chairties has joined with them to finish the schools off with school chairs.  The chair company we commissioned ships the chair parts then puts them together on site.  We arrived to find one room filled with chair frames and the welder busily welding more.  In another room someone was putting the wood slats on the chairs and still another was silk-screening the name of LDS Charities on the back of the chairs.  It is a major undertaking as construction continues in and around the school.  One room had the complete chairs. 

We talked with the chair rep and made a few recommendations for change then walked around the neighborhood. Then we headed back to the hotel to pack up. 

On our way to the airport we stopped off at a couple of historical sites.  One is the place were General Mac Arthur landed when he returned to the Philippines late in WWII.  So much has happened in this land.

Elder and Sister Webb  at MacArthur monument

General MacAuthur center front was quite an imposing figure

We continue to feel blessed as we experience the many diverse parts of LDS Charities here in the Philippines.  What a privilege it is to serve the Lord in this assignment. Yes there are frustrations, but He has blessed us with extraordinary insight to a very private part of Philippine life.  We know He loves all his children and there is purpose in every experience in every life.  We do not understand the reasons for all things -- such as poverty.  But He does.  We trust in Him and give our frustrations to Him knowing He knows the beginning from the end and will make all things right in His time.

We love you and pray for your well-being. 

Mom and Dad

Gma and Gpa

Elder and Sister Webb

Sorry. We have not written much. O.K. has it been a crazy time!  Today is the day we welcome Brother Revillo as the new Area Welfare Manager.  He seems great, knows what he wants and is ready to jump in with both feet.  It will take some time to train him but he has great experience and will pick things up with little trouble. 

As for Elder Webb and me?  We are so happy to have a leader.  It’s been kind of fun to be managers. We  were able to attend meetings with the Area Authorities and watch the decision process, which is inspired.  We got to attend the managers’ conference and were welcomed soundly. I was asked by HR to teach a water color class to the wives.  We were at Pico De Lora Resort for 4 nights and it was business during the day and fun at night.  The Filipinos love a good time and they do not hold back; singing, dancing, karaoke, bowling whatever they do is filled with laughter and high performance. 

These are some of the people who came to the screening at Mabuhay Deseret.  They will have vision surgery
Sister Webb works with Mabuhay and was visiting last week where she met these new friends 

The managers are a great group of people.  It was a wonderful way to introduce us to the workings of the Philippine Area Organization.  Brother de Almeida, our DTA, was helpful for the first couple of weeks, then he took his vacation and once again we were left feeling a little lost.  So we just started doing whatever we could to move the work forward. We did a cold call at GMA Kapuso in April; they were a partner years ago and also do wheelchairs. Roger expressed his dismay that LDS Charities does not follow through with its partners.  We apologized and said we would make sure to introduce our replacements before we left.  Two months later he called us about providing school chairs for the schools they were rebuilding in Bohol.  They asked for 700 for October.   

The first of July they called and asked us to change that to 700 chairs  to Tacloban by the middle of August -- a very short lead-time when you haven't even settled on a supplier yet!  We set about finding a builder of chairs.  Danny Soleta, our church service missionary, was in China on business and while there he located a  chair company.  We found another company here in town that is a subsidiary of a Korean Company manufacturer.  The Korean Company was relocating its warehouse and didn’t answer our calls so we ordered from China who said they would meet the delivery date. The date is important.  The solar lamps we got in China were great and there were no problems with delivery.   We ordered the China chairs went to finance for the down payment, which they sent.   Then China said they didn’t have the wood for the chairs, and added that they would not be ready until the first of September.  Elder Webb sat in the office ready to cut his wrists while he and Danny talked about what we should do.  I suggested they call the company that would not return their call earlier, saying "maybe they have completed their move and have their act together". They answered the phone, said yes they could make the delivery date so we went to the DTA to tell him we had a second deal.  Elder Webb did some kind of juggling act. (It’s what he has done all his working life)  We have 3 orders for 700 chairs each but not all are rush so we got the last one approved, moved the Tacloban chairs back to Bohol and ordered the Tacloban chairs from the Korean company who sends parts and then an assembly team to the site then puts the chairs together.  Funny!  They shipped the chairs on Friday to arrive on Tuesday (today, the 9th of Aug) but they arrived yesterday! Some scrambling, but the assembly is on-going.  Big Sigh.

 

We were invited to attend the World Health Organization's Conference on Immunization.  Immunization is a major initiative of LDS Charities

Sister Webb preparing newborn kits

There was so much drama in this office we could have made a TV series.  We called finance and asked them to make the final payment so the chairs could be shipped.  They said they could not do it, that we were out of money.   What they meant was that they were out of dollars and have no way to replenish.  We told them to try the ATM.  They said they are not set up to make payments from here.  In the middle of all this the new controller, David Bowman, showed up.  We know him from South Africa; he arrived there about 6 month before we left.  He cut through the fog and solved the problem. Then he was able to get a hold of the 2016 project budget we had requested in May.  He informed us we had over spent the budget by $70,000.  He didn’t know we had another $120,000 worth of project approvals we had presented to the Area President before his arrival.  He helped us get the monies for the chairs and then he informed us we are not to buy outside the Philippines.  We both looked at him and said what?  “We’ve been buying outside the country for years.  We just saved LDS Charities 1/3 the cost of the chairs they donated”.  He said “I don’t care about saving money that is not important here”.  Long and short of it we had to get special permission to continue to work with the suppliers. We now have an authorized company who can provide supplies we need.  When all is said and done, Brother Bowman has been great.  He has shown great patience with us, and has explained things so we now know what is up and what is down.  Because there were so many irregularities in our brilliant work we had lots of papers to fill out; budget increase requests to make and budgets for next year to work out. Moroni says those without the law are not under condemnation. We qualified for not having the law. 

 

Another Saturday in the office.  We will be glad when the new manager comes

The entrance to Fabella Hopsital

We also had to bring in SLC to purchase the Day One Waterbags for the clean water project in Baguio.  It’s Elder and Sister  McClures deal.  We did not know it but they were negotiating with the buyer rather than going through the area.  We all thought we had to know what things were going to cost before we could submit a project.  We do, but that does not mean we talk deal talk.  The McClures are not people to stand still.  They were frustrated because they had not had a deal approved since their arrival.  When we approved the project they were ready to go and were going to get it done.  What did any of us know?  So everyone is supposed to work through us and we are to work through the area office purchasing even if we could do the deal in half the time.   

 

Handing out blankets and newborn kits with the Area Presidency wives

The DTA (our boss) is very happy to see LDS Charities doing so many worthwhile projects.  However, we have had to petition SLC for an increase in our initiative budget.  It’s been a little embarrassing for everyone especially finance who didn’t seem to know where we stood either.  Benson’s managing style continued as he prepared us to take over his job…….one power point with no further instructions.  His is a quiet strength.  It was on the job training once again.   It has all worked out and we have learned tons even though we felt pretty panicky in the beginning.  We just kept moving and praying. I imagine that is how anyone feels who journeys with the Lord.  Look at Lehi, at the Brother of Jared.  They started with a prayer and a willingness to step into the unknown knowing the Lord would guide them.  The Lord is blowing us along.

Elder and Sister Arderns farewell.  They have spent the past 5 years in the Area Presidency.  This is the choir.

Sister Haynie visiting with mother of triplets

Visiting the NICU From Left Sister Bowen, Sister Haynie, Sister Schmutz, Sister Webb and MaLou  a NICU nurse

Last week we returned to Fabella with the last of the blankets Sister Webb brought back with her from Willow Creek 7th Ward.  She put them in newborn kits.  Sister Smith, (our wheelchair specialist from the states) brought little outfits and toys her daughter's ward had put together.  Sister Webb put them together with the blankets, baby wipes, baby soap and diapers in zip lock bags or LDS Charities bags.  We also took the rest of the hygiene kits the Columbia Falls Ward sent from Montana.  We had 70 newborn kits, 10 hygiene kits and 90 blankets; enough for everyone in the Maternity Ward to get something. You may remember Fabella was 80% condemned after there was a fire in the elevator shaft.  That was April.  Since then they have inched their way back into full operation and will remain in this building until their new building is ready sometime in 2017.  We are not sure anything changed, it's just that there was no place for people to go as an alternative.  It is still my favorite hospital to visit and I have seen a number of them.  The thought of having them move twice did seem crazy if not impossible.

Elder Webb taking a break in the doctor lounge at Fabella.

Telling the story of Little Red Riding-hood Philippine style.  Children recovering from cancer or surgery at Mabuhay House.  Sisters from the Area Office plan an activity once a week for the children at this center.  There were no toys for them to play with.  We took some blocks and they were thrilled to create buildings and roads.  They share with each other in a most caring way.  They loved acting out Little Red Riding-hood.  We have come to love the children and their bravery. 

One week from now brings us to 5 months left.  Our calendar is filling up and we have received notification of our replacement's arrival in November.  What an amazing adventure we are having. The Lord is leading us in this work.  He answers our questions in a most loving way; he guides us to people who help us do His work. He lives and loves to the end.  We are so thankful to know he is caring for you while we are gone.

Love,

Mom and Dad

Gma and Gpa

Elder and Sister Webb

Norriss and Carol